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About Me

I live and blog in Ann Arbor, Michigan. University of Michigan BA and MA from Eastern Michigan University. One term in the Michigan Army National Guard. The Institute of Land Warfare, Army magazine, Infantry Magazine, Military Review, Naval Institute Proceedings, and Joint Force Quarterly have published my occasional articles. See "Published Works" on the web version for citations.

The Undead Archives

My undead archives pre-Blogger were actually restored to life after Geocities sites went dark. Start at the old home page here.
If you find a link to the old site on the current site or old site, you should be able to replace the "g" in "geocities" with an "r" and make a good link.
Another archived site is here.
It replaces the ".com" with ".ws".
I hope to move all the older archives here (and started that project) but it is really tedious.

Friday, June 24, 2016

When in the Course of Human Events

So the British people have voted to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with the European Union and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them. Good for them.

Britain voted to break away from the European Union, toppling Prime Minister David Cameron and dealing a thunderous blow to the 60-year-old bloc that sent world markets plummeting on Friday.

Cameron announced he would step down to make way for a new leader by early October after voters opted to exit the 28-nation alliance in defiance of his predictions of economic disaster and isolation.

Britons, many of them worried by immigration, decided 52 percent to 48 percent in favour of quitting the bloc, a margin of more than one million votes, according to final results from Thursday's referendum.

I'm relieved. Assuming the Euro-elites in Britain respect the vote. It wouldn't be the first time voters who rejected the EU were ignored.

Britain will remain Britain. The EU won't destroy British military power by draining it to build an EU military that will no doubt be much better at suppressing dissent than stopping Russians, bombing Libya, or fighting in Afghanistan.

In the long run, Britain's economy will be fine. The way Europeans have been eager to make deals with Iran despite the record of the mullahs, I don't think French intentions to punish Britain for leaving will last long.

As for our president's threats to put Britain at the back of the line for trade deals? You already have nukes. Make a few ugly statements and our leader will swoon at the prospect of resetting relations with Britain.

The European Union risks losing more members, after Britain voted to leave the 28-nation bloc, if it does not reform, Poland's EU minister Konrad Szymanski said on Friday.

I dare say that Britain can cause far more harm to the EU than the EU can inflict on Britain.

As an aside, I wonder if the example of Britain leaving voluntarily will lead the EU to expel less desirable member states to strengthen what remains?

Separation will no doubt be scary for Britain--and complicated. A lot must be done to break away after decades of adapting to being entwined within political Europe. But in time, Britain will find new ways to remain entwined economically with Europe without giving up the freedoms that Britain has created over many centuries. I do believe that those freedoms would have been dangerously eroded under the European Union.

Remember that after our separation from Britain, we found that our trade was suddenly vulnerable to Barbary pirates without the protection of the Royal Navy. We had to learn to stand on our own. And we did.

With NATO channeling British defense efforts, Britain at least doesn't have to worry about a defense gap. And without Britain, the EU independent defense aspirations will be difficult to create.

To the British people, congratulations. But stiff upper lip and all that. The struggle ahead to separate cleanly will be difficult. But by voting to leave the EU, you have voted to remain free.

Germany is worried that France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Hungary could also seek to leave the European Union after Britain's vote to quit the bloc, German newspaper Die Welt said on Friday, citing a finance ministry strategy paper.

The European Economic Community, as a trading bloc, made sense. The political European Union as a proto-imperial state that destroys democracy in the long run never did.

It was only acceptable when a political entity of Europe that might mobilize European military power was the alternative to a Europe conquered by the Soviet Union. Since 1991, that barest reason to risk autocracy has disappeared.

UPDATE: Some Europeans will try to disrupt Britain to punish the British for wanting their independence. So what does Britain have now? As a wise man once said of America, "a republic constitutional monarchy, if you can keep it."

The British must remember that the referendum that declared Brexit is not binding on your rulers, and you rely on your leaders to follow through on this demonstration of popular intent.

Work the problems and be confident that the British can rise up to achieve what they built in the past--Great Britain--without taking orders from some continental with pretensions of power.

And be grateful that the European Union doesn't have tanks to send in to demonstrate the consequences of Britain rejecting the empire.

But no mention of "Grexit" (Greece exiting) as other stories have mentioned. Honestly, with one of the healthiest of the EU states voting to get out, I wouldn't be surprised if the European Union issue wasn't so much fear that Greece will follow Britain's example as it is that the EU might want to push the weak link of Greece out.

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Note on site statistics: When I strip out the junk hits from Blogger statistics that seem to come and go in waves, I appear to have about 10,000 hits per month.

My old statistics package, Site Meter, seems to miss a lot and even disappears visits after they've appeared.

I just added a new StatCounter. So far it shows far fewer hits than Blogger and is more in line with Site Meter. But I suspect neither of the non-Blogger statistics register hits from social media. So I'm not sure what my audience size is. It is puzzling to me.

Of course, it is quite possible that my failure to use Facebook and Twitter has handicapped me in getting an audience. Or it may be an additional issue. I may be a blogosaur!